Well, I saw this one coming. The jury in the Raymond Scott case cleared him on the charge that he stole the First Folio from Durham University in 1998, but found him guilty of handling stolen goods and removing criminal property from the United Kingdom.
Scott was remanded to custody, and Judge Richard Lowden stated after the verdict that there will be "an inevitable substantial custodial sentence." In the meantime, he has ordered a psychiatric evaluation.
I was afraid this was how the verdict was going to play out - the charges on which Scott was convicted were fairly airtight (he did walk into the Folger with the stolen Folio), but it seemed to me (at least based on the reports of the prosecution's case that I've been able to read) that there was some question about the theft itself.
How this'll all shake out now, nobody knows - but I'm glad of the guilty verdicts that we got, and more than anything else, what's important is that the Folio is back where it belongs, at Durham University.
